"Mary Stewart - Wildfire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Mary)

breadth of the valley floor, almost a mile of flat sheep-bitten turf, unbroken save by little peaty streams that
here and there meandered seawards. The road, narrow and rutted, curved away across it, following the
shore line, then lifted its grey length up through the heather and out of sight. To the right the sea murmured,
pewter-dark now and unillumined in the shadow of the mountains. Far to the left, at Blaven's foot, a
glimmer of water recalled the copper sky.

A late grouse shouted "Comeback!" and fell silent. A gull on the shore stretched its wings once, then
settled them again upon its back. The sea seemed still. It was a prospect wild and dreary enough; no sound
but a bird's call and a sheep's lament, no movement but the shake of a gull's wing and the stride of a
latecomer walking unhurriedly across the grass.

Then the walker trod on the gravel of the road. The scrunch of his boot on the rough surface startled the
stillness. A feeding snipe flashed up beside him, and fled up the glen in a ;zigzag of lightning flight. I saw the
silver gleam of his undcrwings once, twice, against the towering menace of Blaven, then 1 lost him.

"Blaven ..." I said thoughtfully. "I wonderтАФ"

Behind me. Marcia's voice was sharp and brittle. "Not any more of that, please. D'you mind?"

I looked back at her in surprise. She was gulping the last of her third gin, and across it she met my eyes
queerly. Disconcerted, and a little shaken, as one always is by rudeness, I stared back at her. I had shifted
the talk rather arbitrarily, I knew, to Gianetta and her misdeeds, but then I hadn't wanted to talk about
Nicholas. And she had seemed interested enough. If I had been boring herтАФbut she had not appeared to be
bored. On the contrary.

She gave an apologetic little grin. "I can't help it," she said. "But don't let's. Please."

"As you wish," I said, a little stiffly. "I'm sorry." I turned back to the window.

The mountain met me, huge and menacing. And I looked at it in sudden enlightenment. Blaven. It had
been my mention of Blaven, not of Gianetta, that had made Marcia retreat into her gin glass like a snail into
its shell. Roderick Grant, and Murdo, and now Marcia Maling . . . or was I being over-imaginative? I stared
out at the gathering dusk, where the latecomer was just covering the last twenty yards to the hotel door.
Then my look narrowed on him. I stiffened, and looked again. . . .

"Oh my God," I said sharply, and went back into the room like a pea from a catapult.

I stopped on the hearthrug, just in front of a goggle-eyed Marcia Maling, and drew a long, long breath. "Oh
my dear God," I said again. "What's up? Is it because IтАФ?"

"It's not you at all," I said wearily. "It's the man who's just arriving at the front door of this hotel." "Man?"
She was bewildered.

"Yes. I presume he is your nameless, dark, damn-your-eyes writer . . . except that he doesn't happen to
be nameless to me. His name is Nicholas Drury."
Her mouth opened. ''No! you meanтАФ?" I nodded. "Just that. My husband." "TheтАФthe stinker?"

I smiled mirthlessly. "Quite sc. As you say. This holiday," 1 added without any conviction whatsoever, "is
going to be fun."